Cogito, Ergo Mutatio

A long day done in service to self
outdoors, unadorned, laden;
but pleasurably so.
Burning muscle screams,
senses creep, focus narrows.
 
Landscapes emerge and boundaries reveal themselves.
Machine noise and diesel heat:
the din of slash and burn;
I compose with fuel and iron,
and will.

Whilst working so I again ponder the meaning of existence
and again conclude there is no meaning.

But knowing Turing's work,
and kin to kindred thoughts,
I conclude that if I am but
a selfsame automaton,
a ghost in the machine,
a program, perhaps, at best, in some vast Difference Engine
then yet I am aware.

Existence it seems is not a prerequisite for intuition, therefore, although 
existence may not have meaning, meaning unarguably has existence.

Since I ponder and know I ponder,
and pause to look and wonder,
and find no need to invoke magic to explain what I see
I conclude that meaning requires
not some revenant artifact
returned from the cold philosophies of gods,
but simply an acceptance of my own will.

Meaning exists, yet it is undefined.
And so I define it any way I want.

Cogito, ergo sum.
Itinerant words drifting lazily
reshape the landscape of inner space:
neurons re-purposed,
I will to power.

And willing so I scrape
and tug at the burning ground
'til vast fatigue weakens my senses.
Pondering ended, I look around once more
and find I am elsewhere.